This invention relates to air brake cylinders for railroad cars, and more particularly, to apparatus for mounting the air brake cylinder to the bolster casting of a railroad car.
It is known in the art of railroad air brakes to mount the brake cylinder directly to the bolster casting. In such an arrangement, two or three bolts are placed through the bolster casting from the inside of the casting, and are screwed into corresponding threaded weld nuts disposed inside the cylinder at its rod end.
However, the shape of the bolster casting and the fact that other objects are mounted to the casting in the vicinity of the cylinder make for difficult accessibility to the two or three bolt heads with a wrench. The assembly of the cylinder to the bolster is further complicated by the relatively heavy weight (e.g., 60-70 pounds) of the cylinder. Thus, assembling the cylinder to the bolster casting is a "two-man job"--one person holding the cylinder outside of the bolster casting and the other person attempting to torque the bolts by placing himself in an awkward position to try to reach the boltheads with a wrench.
The relative inaccessibility of the heads of the bolts disposed within the interior of the bolster casting is better characterized by a general inability to properly position a wrench to apply sufficient torque to the bolts. Thus, the bolts, being inconsistently torqued, frequently loosen over time during operation of the cylinder. Further, the brake cylinder tends to crack due to the constant movement of its mounted surface. Such cracking endangers operation of the railroad car.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide apparatus that facilitates the proper mounting of an air brake cylinder to the bolster casting of a railroad car.
It is a general object of the present invention to provide apparatus that allows for ease in assembling an air brake cylinder to the bolster casting.
It is a further object of the present invention to reduce the possibility that the air brake cylinder will loosen from its assembly to the bolster casting.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide apparatus that allows a single person to assemble an air brake cylinder to the bolster casting.
It is still another object of the present invention to reduce the possibility that the air brake cylinder may crack over time because of improper assembly of the cylinder to the bolster casting.
The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent when the following description is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.